This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Card accounts are known to be used to purchase a variety of different goods and services from merchants. Certain merchants, especially larger merchants with brick-and-mortar locations, or virtual locations on the Internet, permit consumers to complete transactions through card accounts for the convenience of the consumers. The merchants are charged fees for purchases made to the card accounts. The fees are shared among the issuer of the card account, a payment service provider, and the acquirer associated with the merchant. The impact of the fees to the merchants often depends on volume and/or value of transactions made to the card accounts. Separately, social ventures, such as festivals, farmers' markets, sports events, school activities, carnivals, etc., exist where groups of merchants gather, often temporarily, to offer goods and/or services to consumers. Transactions with merchants in the social venture are generally reliant on cash or check to avoid fees associated with card accounts, especially for low volume and low value transactions. Certain merchants do arrange to receive payments through card accounts utilizing devices, such as Square®, by which each merchant is setup with an individual account and is then charged a certain fee (e.g., 3.0%) for each transaction made to a card account.
Corresponding reference numerals indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views of the drawings.